Podcasts about rationalising

Rationalising through gathering information.

Ever wondered if hiring an award writer is actually cheating? Join us as we unravel this common misconception in The Award Writer with Lucinda White from Pure Awards, who brings nearly two decades of invaluable experience to the table. Lucinda, with her rich background in fundraising, event management, and specialized award writing, makes a compelling case for why external expertise can be a game-changer for businesses aspiring to stand out in the competitive awards landscape. We discuss the importance of effectively communicating your achievements to judges and how an expert can help you overcome the challenge of self-articulation. In this episode, we also shine a spotlight on the complexities surrounding awards for women in business, using the "I Also" campaign by F:Entrepreneur as a key example. Lucinda offers strategic advice on selecting the right awards, emphasizing less competitive categories and the nuanced nature of judging. We delve into the essentials of crafting robust award entries and the frustrations of incomplete submissions. Alongside these insights, Lucinda imparts broader business wisdom on persistence, setting goals, and maintaining integrity. Tune in for a treasure trove of tips to elevate your journey to award-winning success!   {1:42} How Lucinda got into award writing. {4:11} Is it right to hire an awards writer? {8:14} Interviewing the client to understand their business. {8:54} Creating a strategic awards plan. {11:18} Why you must attend award ceremonies when shortlisted. {12:31} The error in not responding to organiser's communications. {13:42} The importance of F:Entrepreneur. {14:15} Does Lucinda enter awards for her own business? {15:49} Lucinda's advice for selecting the right awards for your business. {19:40} Rationalising why entrants don't get shortlisted. {21:20} Recognising finalists as well as winners. {23:29} The vagaries of voting contests. {25:07} Putting effort into awards entries. {28:00} Lucinda's business tips. {30:27} Treat award organisers well. Connect with Debbie at: https://thebusinessawardsshow.co.uk Connect with Lucinda: https://pureawards.co.uk/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pureawards/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61551643543196 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@pureawards8040 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pureawards/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pureawards

“There are no excuses for failing in sales”, is a common ideological position. However, is this really true? There is no doubt that sales is a very macho environment for men and women.  There are set quotas, targets, numbers to be hit and if they are not hit, then that person is deemed to be failing. There are no hiding places in sales.  You make your target or you don't.  Now, if we fired every salesperson who failed to hit their target, we wouldn't have many people in sales.  Japan makes this especially fraught because the declining population translates into a shortage of salespeople. This also means that the quality of salespeople in the market is only going to decline.  Whether we like it or not, we will be looking for anyone with a pulse to hire because we need warm bodies.  Targets smargets in this case. In sales anywhere, we know a couple of things.  The majority of people in the business are untrained.  Companies want off the shelf top earners who they can cut loose and let them go forth and bring in the dough.  That is an epic delusion in this day and age in Japan.  People who can sell are not moving because the company is doing its best to keep them.  That means the ones who are mediocre, or worse, are mobile.  Even this supply will dry up as companies become more and more desperate for salespeople and will keep their underperformers because they at least know something about the product lineup and have met a few customers. We also know that at any point in time, a third of people we meet who we hope will become clients will never buy from us.  There may be many reasons for this, to do with budgets, decision-making, ideology around self-sufficiency, stupidity, etc.  Another third will buy, but unfortunately not according to our monthly sales quota driven schedule.  In Japan, especially, it is exceedingly rare to meet someone and then immediately get a sale.  The dispersed decision-making process in business here ensures that there are many voices to be consulted about a new decision to buy from an unknown supplier.  This internal harmonisation can take a long time to come to fruition.  The best way to think about is like this: “the buyer is never on your schedule”. The remaining third will buy, and the question becomes why will they buy from you? The “you” is important here because firms don't buy from other firms.  They buy from the individual they meet, who is sitting across from them in the meeting room. They make their decision on that basis.  Is the chemistry there between buyer and seller emanating from a solid foundation of trust?  Where does this trust come from?  The biggest part of the trust equation is from the seller's kokorogamae.  This Japanese word can be variously translated, but in this context, “true intention” is the best version.  True intention means what is really driving the salesperson?  Is it desperation to keep their job by making their monthly sales target?  Is it greed to score a big commission or a promotion?  Is it to do the right thing which is best for the buyer?  If it isn't the latter, then we have a problem.  Correct kokorogamae is often defeated by the culture of the firm.  Doing the best thing for the buyer is not a smash and grab activity designed to yield immediate returns.  The focus of correct kokogamae is to get the repeat order, not a single sale.  That mentality is very specific and the time frame is long.  If the sales manager is pushing everyone for immediate sales revenues, then the needs of the buyer get tossed out the window and the salespeople will do and say anything to get the sale.  In fact, everyone is working hard to dismantle the brand and destroy the client trust for short-term gains and this is driven by the leadership.  Is it the fault of the salespeople that they are working for idiots? Companies have to do much better by their salespeople.  Target expectations need to be realistic and have attached timelines which make sense.  Training is an absolute requirement, in particular, how to ask questions in order to fully understand what the buyer is trying to achieve. Pitching a solution makes no sense if you have no idea what the buyer needs, and this activity has to be replaced by intelligent questioning skills.  The aim has to become the repeat order, because farming is a lot less expensive and more efficient than hunting all the time. Just hiring people and then firing them is an option that is no longer able to be enjoyed by companies in Japan. Given that the quality of those recruited will just keep going down, these individuals have to be encouraged and developed.  That requires time and treasure, but there is no alternative.  

John MacKenzie chats with Tamara Srhoj who tells her story of a home invasion and the lack of support for victims of crime. Cairns residents are fed up with the "new normal" attitude toward rationalising criminal behaviour.

In this podcast, James Cave (Editor-in-Chief) and David Phizackerley (Deputy Editor) talk about the December 2023 issue of DTB. They discuss monitoring drugs in primary care and the need to rationalise the number of blood tests undertaken (https://dtb.bmj.com/content/61/12/178). They talk about a study that reported the effect of bempedoic acid on a composite cardiovascular outcome (https://dtb.bmj.com/content/61/12/180). The main article is a review of semaglutide as an option for weight management and discusses the evidence for its use and some of the hype that has surrounded the its launch (https://dtb.bmj.com/content/61/12/182). They begin by responding to a listener's complaint about terminology.   Related link: Aronson JK. When I use a word . . . Medicines regulation—apothecaries, quacks, chemists, druggists, pharmacists. BMJ 2023;383:p2603. https://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj.p2603    Please subscribe to the DTB podcast to get episodes automatically downloaded to your mobile device and computer. Also, please consider leaving us a review or a comment on the DTB Podcast iTunes podcast page (https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/dtb-podcast/id307773309). If you want to contact us please email dtb@bmj.com. Thank you for listening.

How much does India spend on subsidies? What is its implication? Can there be a better solution? In this episode, Pranay Kotasthane and Sarthak Pradhan analyse subsidies from a public finance perspective and evaluate some policy alternatives.Here are the papers referred to in the podcast:The Volume and Composition of Subsidies in India 1967-88Subsidies, Merit Goods and the Fiscal Space for Reviving Growth: An Aspect of Public Expenditure in IndiaYou can follow Pranay Kotasthane on twitter: https://twitter.com/pranaykotasYou can follow Sarthak Pradhan on twitter: https://twitter.com/PSarthak19Check out Takshashila's courses: https://school.takshashila.org.in/You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app.You can check out our website at https://shows.ivmpodcasts.com/featuredDo follow IVM Podcasts on social media.We are @IVMPodcasts on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram.https://twitter.com/IVMPodcastshttps://www.instagram.com/ivmpodcasts/?hl=enhttps://www.facebook.com/ivmpodcasts/Follow the show across platforms:Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Gaana, Amazon MusicDo share the word with you folks!

“The conflict between emotions and conscious rationality is at the core of what it means to be a human in the 21st century.“The conflict between emotional and rational thinking is perhaps the greatest dilemma of the present. Magnus Nilsson encourages us to use the gift that is a conscious mind to investigate our subconscious, our emotions. Rationalising can be the delay, making us wait until a crucial point to make a decision. Because, if you really think about it - didn't you already know? Magnus walked us through the different stages of his career. He told us the story of Fäviken, how and why it led to the end. He discussed how we, as people, often rationalise our decisions after initially making them guided by emotions. But what if it's also as rational and valid a decision as a completely conscious one? What if we re-learn how to act in the forms of sensations and emotions?

As accountants, the world expects us to deal with the number problems of the world. When we see numbers on a financial statement, it's not just a math problem for us, but a story waiting to be told. In this episode, MJ the tutor talks about some of the financial ratios we perform and calculate (and what they mean) to get the story out of those financial statements. Accounting Makes Cents is a biweekly podcast dedicated to CIMA accounting students and those still thinking about it. Episodes will range from providing study tips and resources to brief discussions of CIMA syllabus topics. If you like the show, please hit subscribe to add it to your listening queue and to ensure you do not miss an episode. MJ the tutor would love to hear from you if you have ideas for future episodes. You can reach out by leaving a voice message. Thanks for tuning in and see you on an Accounting Makes Cents episode soon! The show transcripts are available on www.mjthetutor.com Let's connect: Anchor: anchor.fm/mjthetutor Facebook: facebook.com/mjthetutor Instagram: @mjthetutor Twitter: @mjthetutor Credits: “Ding Ding Small Bell” (https://freesound.org/s/173932/) by JohnsonBrandEditing (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1RImxnsbfngagfXd_GWCDQ) licensed under CC0 Licence. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mjthetutor/message

In this episode, we chat with Alastair Clayton, Executive Director at Artemis Resources, a gold and copper-focused resources company. They have major assets in the Pilbara area, at Paterson Central and Carlow Castle. Alastair has a considerable amount of experience with raising capital for ASX and AIM-listed companies as well as extensive experience in evaluating and financing large-scale mining projects. He tells the story behind Artemis Resources and what they are looking to achieve in developing their gold assets in the Pilbara area of Western Australia. KEY TAKEAWAYS When Alastair and his colleagues picked up Artemis it was quite undervalued. Artemis had too many projects running, so they stripped the portfolio back from 10 to 2 projects. Rationalising the portfolio saved money and generated a lot of cash. They are focusing on the Carlow Castle copper/gold project and their Paterson Central project. Artemis still has an eye on developing new projects, at a later date. In the past, Pilbara was only about iron ore and liquified gas. Now, high-grade gold has been discovered there. They largely have heritage approval across their projects. For copper the supply side is shocking. So, demand for Artemis copper is sure to be high. All the access infrastructure is already in place. BEST MOMENTS ‘Who would have thought it a gold-copper province in the Pilbara. ´ ‘When would you ever get a chance to drill next to a virgin 20-million-ounce gold discovery in Western Australia? Now, you can.' ‘We own 100% of our project. We are the only Junior in the area to retain 100% of their land.' EPISODE RESOURCES Website: https://artemisresources.com.au/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArtemisResources VALUABLE RESOURCES Email: rob@mining-international.org Website: https://www.mining-international.org/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-tyson/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MiningRobTyson Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DigDeepTheMiningPodcast/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theminingpodcast/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DigDeepTheMiningPodcast/videos ABOUT THE HOST Rob Tyson is an established recruiter in the mining and quarrying sector and decided to produce the “Dig Deep” The Mining Podcast to provide valuable and informative content around the mining industry. He has a passion and desire to promote the industry and the podcast aims to offer the mining community insight into people's experiences and careers covering any mining discipline, giving the listeners helpful advice and guidance on industry topics. Rob is the Founder and Director of Mining International Ltd, a leading global recruitment and headhunting consultancy based in the UK specializing in all areas of mining across the globe from the first world to third world countries from Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. We source, headhunt, and discover new and top talent through a targeted approach and search methodology and have a proven track record in sourcing and positioning exceptional candidates into our client's organizations in any mining discipline or level. Mining International provides a transparent, informative, and trusted consultancy service to our candidates and clients to help them develop their careers and business goals and objectives in this ever-changing marketplace. Podcast Description Rob Tyson is an established recruiter in the mining and quarrying sector and decided to produce the “Dig Deep” The Mining Podcast to provide valuable and informative content about the mining industry. He has a passion and desire to promote the industry and the podcast aims to offer the mining community an insight into people's experiences and careers covering any mining discipline, giving the listeners helpful advice and guidance on industry topics. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why exactly has the Reserve Bank of Australia lifted the cash rate so much, so soon? This week's episode of Secrets of the Top 100 Agents sees Grace Ormsby sit down with RateCity research director Sally Tindall to unpack the reasoning behind the Reserve Bank of Australia's decision to lift rates by half a per cent on 7 June 2022. Discussing the ramifications of such a sharp increase – and acknowledging the likelihood of an identical hike in the not-too-distant future, the pair contemplate what it could mean for Australian mortgage holders – and who will and won't be affected by the changes. In this episode, you will hear: How mortgage holders can brace for the impact of higher interest rates Just how much more Australians will be paying on their home loans When to expect rate rises in 2022 – and just how high the RBA will go Make sure you never miss an episode by subscribing to us now on Apple Podcasts. Did you like this episode? Show your support by rating us or leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (REB Podcast Network) and by liking and following Real Estate Business on social media: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you have any questions about what you heard today, any topics of interest you have in mind, or if you'd like to lend a voice to the show, email editor@realestatebusiness.com.au for more insights.

This episode introduces the listeners to a key concept, the 2 mental spaces in which an assessor operates in an assessment.Rational - facts followed by decisionRationalizing -  decision followed by fact selectionManaan uses a range of practical examples to elaborate decision making processes including Festinger's original research from 1954 and the fascinating story of scientology believers. Listen in :)

This is the second half of last weeks episode where we talk about death and overcoming fears. We recommend you listen to episode 59 to gain some more context into the discussion, particularly about coming to terms with death. Topics discussed: Why do we fear death? Subaan's childhood fear of rollercoasters Rationalising fears Overcoming different types of fears Rationalism vs empiricism Are fears irrational? Negativity dominance and loss aversion How can we overcome the fear of death? --- Enjoyed the episode? Please consider leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes. It helps a tonne in helping new people discover the podcast! You can also support us by buying us a coffee (or any food item)!

A recently completed project has recommended changes to the Austroads Guide to Road Tunnels Part 2: Planning, Design and Commissioning to provide guidance on rationalising road signs on the approaches to tunnels, to divert over-height and dangerous goods vehicles that approach tunnel entrances. When these vehicles attempt to pass through tunnels that have not been designed to cater for them, this can cause significant damage to the infrastructure, massive traffic congestion and, in some unfortunate circumstances, injury or loss of life of the motorists. As such, it is highly advantageous to divert these vehicles away from tunnels wherever possible to reduce these negative impacts. This webinar, presented by Bob Allen, Marcus van der Velden, Lindsay Edmonds and Charmaine Joe, covers the following: Project methodology and key findings of the review Current signage practices review and gap analysis Proposed signage scheme Human factors considerations.

Society's god-like objectification of beauty may inherently be a flawed concept. This weekend's podcast focuses on Dr. Teo Wan Lin's research in the field of neuroaesthetics, a sequel to the previous podcast on the role of evolutionary psychology in beauty standards. She posits that the experience of beauty is actually a neuroendocrine process involving our senses and brain processing, rather than one based on a checklist of physical attributes. Using art as an example of how the human brain processes imagery which is translated into an aesthetic experience, she points out that cognitive neuroscience is relevant to understanding the biological basis of our own perceptions of beauty. Rationalising beauty as a neurosensorial experience readily debunks set “beauty standards”, showing that perception can, in fact, be a conscious choice. Want more of our podcast? Episode Recaps and Notes:https://www.scienceofbeauty.net/; Instagram: @drteowanlin; Youtube: http://bit.ly/35rjbve Teo WL. On thoughts, emotions, facial expressions, and aging. Int J Dermatol. 2021 May;60(5):e200-e202. doi: 10.1111/ijd.15443. Epub 2021 Feb 9. PMID: 33559158. [PubMed]

James Field's decision to enter the Startup world is somewhat at odds with many of the entrepreneurs who feature on this show. James weighed up the risk of continuing in academia with starting his own business, and determined that overall, Startup life was the less risky move of the two! LabGenius was born: a deep-tech startup that uses AI to discover the next generation of drugs. In this chat with Amrit, they discuss the different ways to define and measure success, the power of mentors, and leading by example to create a culture (both at work and at home).   Keep up to date with everything Startup Dads related on Twitter -  https://twitter.com/startupdadspod/ (https://twitter.com/startupdadspod/) This week's Startup Shout Outs: https://www.huggg.me/ (Huggg) - create meaningful moments with digital gifts A https://fascinateproductions.co.uk/ (Fascinate) Production. 

Baxter and I chat about the card market, linking it to the changes in the world and the future of the market Follow: @g00dpull @cardculture1

Sabarimala: Rationalising Skewed Perspectives | Anand Prasad | Swami Ayyappan SrijanTalks

[Q/A] Sabarimala: Rationalising Skewed Perspectives | Anand Prasad | Swami Ayyappan SrijanTalks

We were thrilled to have Stuart on this episode. Stuart works with Lift the Bar and runs the podcast, which is nearing their 300th episode. Stuart was also a personal trainer, and runs the social media and marketing for Lift the Bar. We talk through and go off on a few expected tangents on; Expectations coming into the industry and what influenced them. Feeling self doubt and wanting to leave the industry Any tips on how to process those thoughts to move yourself forward Rationalising self doubt and feeling like an imposter Some golden nuggets from some of the industry experts he has interviewed over the last few years. Check out Lift the Bar instagram @lifthtebar And you can catch Stuart on email too @ stuart@liftthebar.com Hope you enjoy this one guys.

Today, we talk to none other than Mr. Lalit Makhijani. Studying from MIT-Sloan School of Management, Mr. Lalit has had a career of dreams. Starting off from Kimberley-Clark, he went on to become the assistant Vice President of the Citi Bank, then the Head of Sales and Marketing at the Wadhva Group before assuming his latest role as the CMO of Godrej Properties. In a world where marketing has become increasingly the product of data driven analytics, Mr. Lalit believes that in reality, it is the human connections that drive consumers even today. He talks in length in the podcast about how he, with the help of his team has successfully made a culture where consumers matter the most, something which is missing from most MNCs of today's world. Mr. Lalit also shares his inspiring journey. Tune in now.

Tahnee is back on The Women's Series today for a moving conversation with Dr. Oscar Serrallach, author of The Postnatal Depletion Cure, Integrative GP specialising in women's postnatal health, and devoted father, working passionately to bring more focus on mothers postnatal health into the world. His project The Postnatal Depletion Cure has been inspired by witnessing/treating so many women with chronic postnatal depletion and the lack of awareness this dilemma has, both at a societal and medical level. Dr. Oscar believes mothers are the fabric of our society, and through supporting healthy mothers, we create a healthier world for everyone.  This heart centred conversation is of relevance to everyone. The time to honour and support all mothers, including the great Mother Earth, is now. "We almost forget as a collective that there is no more important job than making another human being, and there is no more important job than teaching that human being how to love, that's a mother's job. As a father, I can teach my kids around the complexities of love, but the actual fundamentals, that starts in the womb and is learned early on, in that house of love".   Tahnee and Dr. Oscar discuss:  The often undervalued role of mothers; Mothers are the centre of society, and as a collective, it's everyone's responsibility to make sure they are well supported. Motherhood in the 21st Century, how far have we fallen? Motherhood has shifted from being a role of central importance to a secondary thing that women add to their already busy lives. Displaced badges of honour; the pressure put on mothers to  get back to work instead of honouring and supporting the transition of the maiden to mother. Brain changes women experience during a single pregnancy and how these fundamental changes relate to cultural beliefs around holding a mother in the postpartum period. The importance of a postnatal care plan. What Dr. Oscar recommends and why. The idea of the super mum; how this term can be detrimental to the health and well-being of mothers. The essential role of the matriarch and the 'grandmother hypothesis'. Why the menopausal years are about giving back and passing on wisdom. The increase in Postnatal Neuro Inflammatory Disorders (postpartum fatigue, postnatal depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder). What are the causes? How can we avoid them? Autoimmune conditions during and post-pregnancy. Harnessing the power of the placenta; how this amazing organ and  subsequent pregnancies can provide an opportunity for healing the mother. Nervous system practices to maintain and rebuild a mother's health.  Who is Dr. Oscar Serrallach? Dr. Oscar Serrallach graduated with a medical degree (MBChB) from the Auckland School of Medicine, New Zealand in 1996. He received his fellowship of Family Medicine and General Practice in 2008 and is currently completing a Fellowship in Nutritional and Environmental Medicine. He is the owner and principal doctor at the Mullumbimby Integrative Medical Centre based in Northern NSW Australia, which he has been running since 2011. Dr Serrallach is the author of the groundbreaking book for women The Postnatal Depletion Cure, a programme and book for women that bridges that gap in women’s postanal health, and has brought hope and healing to so many women suffering with postnatal depletion. Dr Oscar Serrallach is dedicated to remaining at the cutting edge of wellness healthcare and continues to advance and bring awareness to the field of women's postantal health. Resources: Dr. Oscar Serrallach websiite The Postnatal Depletion Cure Dr. Oscar Serrallach Facebook Dr. Oscar Serrallach Instagram Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher, CastBox, iHeart RADIO:)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Tahnee: (00:01) Hi everybody, and welcome to the SuperFeast Podcast. Today I'm here with Dr. Serrallach and we're going to talk about his book, The Postnatal Depletion Cure and his work with women on going and sort of helping them to restore their vitality after having babies, which is a big and beautiful job. So thank you for joining me today.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (00:22) Thanks Tahnee, and thanks for the invitation. I really admire your work with SuperFeast and your role in mother care as well. As we know, mothers centre everything and, as a society and as communities, we need our mothers to be as well as possible.   Tahnee: (00:38) Yeah. I loved that right at the beginning of your book where you say ... I'm going to read it, that the well-being of mothers is the fabric from which the cloth of the future of our society is made. I read that and just thought yes, because it sets the framework for our children, how they live, how they raise their children. It's just a cascade.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (00:58) It's central and it's primary, whereas I think in this 21st century, motherhood has become decentralised and a secondary kind of thing that mothers just add on to their already busy lives. We almost forget as a collective that there is no more important job than making another human being, and there is no more important job teaching that human being how to love. That's a mother's job. As a father, I can teach my kids around the complexities of love, but the actual fundamentals, that starts in the womb and is learned really early on, just that house of love.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (01:44) I think it's useful to kind of reframe that because a lot of mothers feel like they want to stay home and stay in that role, and they're feeling pulled into all the trappings of the 21st century living and jobs and success. We've got a very academic way of kind of even judging one's success.   Tahnee: (02:07) Rationalising. I think a lot of rationalising happens when you become a mother.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (02:12) Well, and externalising, comparing.   Tahnee: (02:14) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (02:14) It can be very tough landscape, especially they're not really that aware of the deep transformation that's kind of occurring within not only mother's kind of psyche, but also within her biology in terms of her brain, her nervous system. Such massive changes occur and everyone's going into parenthood with quite an abstract idea of what they're in for. We talked about Pinterest parenting. It's like you ever go, well, I quite like this and we're going to do this. No, we're not going to do dummies or thumb sucking. We kind of have a checklist of these quite important but not that important issues and actual fundamentals of looking after a helpless human being we don't really have much experience in. We think we'll just kind of wing it.   Tahnee: (03:17) Well, it's funny because there's that old joke where people say, oh you should get a licence to have a child, and there is sort of this element of, culturally, you used to be raised around small children. I see my child and the other children in the street. They kind of raise each other in a way and they learn to be with a smaller person. I can imagine that that gives them this kind of sense that later on they're going to be a little more adapt at handling children when they have their children. I think we miss so much of that because we have these nuclear families and we've lost large families with lots of siblings. That's not really our norm anymore.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (03:56) Yeah, that's right. In traditional societies, there's not a way you would have reached the possibility of becoming a parent without significant experience in actually looking after young children and slightly older children. Again, the analogy of the licence. You wouldn't have needed a licence because you've already had a lot of experience. The sort of research of American. The average couple researches more time in buying a new vehicle than they do in actually becoming a parent. So there's often a lot of research in the antenatal pregnancy, but the parenting side of things, we don't ...   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (04:33) So when I'm making a joke about winging it, that's what we all do, expecting that somehow we'll know what to do or someone's going to turn up and help us.   Tahnee: (04:45) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (04:48) We can really struggle and suffer when a mother hasn't slept for months and, at 3:00 in the morning, she can't settle baby. Then she's trying to work out what's going on. It's a very deep, dark place to try to pull yourself back from, especially when you don't have a cultural context.   Tahnee: (05:09) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (05:10) Or even a default place to go, where to get support or ideas, or solutions. As a society, we're very unkind to mothers generally. If there's anything wrong with the baby, who gets blamed? The mom. I think it should almost be the opposite. If there's any issues with the child, it should almost be a collective, ah, the society didn't turn up enough to help that mother for the child.   Tahnee: (05:37) Yep.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (05:39) Because I don't meet bad mums. I just meet unsupported mums who have struggled and haven't been supported and were unaware. Most mothers are in it boots and all, so it's not a matter of not trying hard enough. It's just not having the right resources, the right knowledge, the right preparation, or even awareness around the certain times of vulnerability that can occur during motherhood. We almost have the opposite in terms of these badges of honour, the super mum getting back to work as early as possible. Working mums, when they're at work, they're pretending they're not a mother. When they're mothering, they pretend they don't have a job.   Tahnee: (06:31) Fragmentation of self.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (06:34) Quite damaging and pretty much impossible because you can't switch off your mother-ness.   Tahnee: (06:39) If only. No, you don't want to. I think when you first ... I certainly remember being a couple of weeks in and being like, oh my gosh, who am I now, because I'm not that person who gave birth to this child and I'm not a mother yet because I don't know that role intimately. It was just this funny little liminal space of I didn't really know who I was becoming and I didn't know who I was ... I sort of knew who I was leaving behind, but there's a grieving period, which happened for me in pregnancy and then again postpartum. It's interesting and there aren't a lot of elders now to even take ...   Tahnee: (07:22) We had an older friend who doesn't have children, and she's raised or helped raise many nieces and nephews. She showed up and swaddled my daughter and picked her up and walked her around a couple of days after I had her. I just was like, whoa, that's cool.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (07:36) And so necessary as well.   Tahnee: (07:38) Yeah, because she was friends and close, she just came in and did it. I thought, wow, there's so few women that I know that could help me like that and that sort of can support. I think that's a big part of it, right?   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (07:52) Yeah. What you're describing very beautifully is that transition from maiden to mother. We can talk about that more, but this idea of matrescence, of becoming a mother, is a very profound idea. Many mothers describe this heart ripping experience with those first few days post birth, and that's a real time of vulnerability. One of the most important things that a mother experiences really in that time is safety and that everything is going to be okay, and that her team around her have got this, because she cannot feel the edges anymore and she's getting used to these mother upgrades in terms of nervous system and brain changes and hormones.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (08:43) It can take several years to get used to these upgrades. What I like about that story that you were sort of sharing is that you had someone, who probably wasn't even asked to help, turning up and doing what was necessary. That's real support, but in a trusting environment. When a mother is actually having to ask for support, it's already too late because, if she senses she's struggling, she's been struggling for quite a bit of time before she's raising her hand, or she may not feel justified to raise her hand to ask for help or feel that she's doing a bad job, and that she's a bad mom and she should know better, which is part of a negative feedback that we often get culturally around motherhood that you just should divinely know how to be a mother at the birth of a child, and shame on you if you didn't get that sort of download.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (09:42) Of course, mothering is a learned skill. As we alluded to before, we don't have the learning prior to becoming mothers often because they're not looking after lots of children and what have you. Then some women learning on the job. In the sense of vulnerability with the massive changes that have occurred and getting a sense that you're not a maiden anymore but you're not a mother yet, this is a classic challenge of matrescence, the becoming of a mother. Who am I? What does my purpose look like? It can be very derailing if that isn't held or there isn't a container to explain the transition.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (10:29) This is why I quite like the term adolescence, to compare to matrescence, because that's the only other thing that's comparable. Adolescence, you don't become and adult at your 18th birthday. It's obviously an important time. And you don't become a mother at the birth of your child, even though that's an obviously very important milestone to transformation. We know that adolescence has massive brain changes that occur during adolescence, but there are actually more brain changes that occur during a single pregnancy than for the entire adolescence.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (11:10) Again, it takes a few years for the adolescent to get used to their brain and they can seem kind of less human for a short period during that, but literally they start feeling more before they start thinking. That's part of ... and for mothers, it's a very similar thing. They can feel so much more than they ever have before, and their brain is infused with millions of oxytocin receptors that maidens don't have and men don't have. That is one of the critical issues in that early phase. This is why so many cultures have such deep cultural beliefs and teachings around holding mother in that early time because, if you think about it, oxytocin not only is the hormone of childbirth in all the contractions of the uterus, but it's also the hormone of skin to skin contact, intimacy, trust and safety.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (12:08) So essentially, the way I'm interpreting the research is that a mother's stress response system has gone from her previous me, am I safe, am I okay, to this oxytocin infused we. Are we safe, are we okay, does this make sense for us? That can sometimes be ... That is what the baby bubble is, but it also can sometimes extend way beyond the baby. Sometimes it can be the family unit. Sometimes it can be the community. Sometimes it can be the world. That is a very raw feeling that mothers can have. I hear so many mothers, they can't watch the news anymore, they cry at commercials. Their ability to be able to tolerate things really changes.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (12:53) They can feel like an alien at their workplace, whereas obviously their workplace hasn't changed at all. They have changed. So they're having to ... They are in a liminal space for a while, but the challenge is in the reintegration. One that their liminal space is allowed to go through its force of process, and this is what those cultural practises are essentially around. Then just to have a healthy reintegration. Otherwise, it can be quite destructive on some levels in terms of the mother's sense of self and her psyche and her emotional well-being. She knows that she's different, but no one's told her that she's going to be different.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (13:41) Trying to deal with that dissonance alone, it's fraught with problems. So a mother suffering on her own is one of the worst things ever really. I think, as a society, that would have never happened in antiquity. Then we're seeing it happen all the time now. We're even seeing sub nuclear families now.   Tahnee: (14:10) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (14:10) So intentional single parenting. Mothers who aren't having a primary partner, having children, so they have even less support than the overwhelmed nuclear family. I see a lot of mothers having to lean on their partners for emotional support, whereas traditionally a partner would have only been doing a small part of that.   Tahnee: (14:33) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (14:34) And the mother could have leaned on so many other people, including aunties and grandmothers and sisters, and really be held deeply with a lot of experience. Yeah, so it's definitely a journey that's fraught with challenges. I think as a collective, and I think this is where you and I have a lot of overlap, is that we understand that. From a traditional Chinese medicine point of view, that's actually well described over many millennia that this potential vulnerability is there. As a collective, we have to make sure that mothers never go there wherever possible and support them as much as possible.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (15:20) A big part of my recent work is not only sort of helping mothers with postnatal depletion and other neuro inflammatory disorders, but actually to do really good postnatal planning.   Tahnee: (15:31) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (15:32) To avoid the pothole in the road. If you can see it, then you can drive around it.   Tahnee: (15:37) Totally, because so much work goes into birth plans. I can't remember how many people asked me about my birth, like every second person. Postpartum, nothing.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (15:50) Yeah, and if you can imagine having half the amount of energy that went into the birth plan going to your postnatal plan, and then enabling a team of people to enact it, because I think part of the ... Like the birth plan, a mother is in a liminal space during birth and she's in a very vulnerable space post birth. She shouldn't be the one enacting the birth plan or enacting the postnatal plan. She should have agreed on what it looks like and then things are happening without her having to really sort of focus on that, because that can be very challenging for a mother to kind of try to be an advocate in that birth space when she's in such an oxytocin infused vulnerable space, or to even have ...   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (16:43) She's often in such a time dilated baby bubble that it can be really hard to pull herself out of that to kind of negotiate-   Tahnee: (16:53) A timeframe or delivery schedule, yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (16:53) ... food rosters, yeah.   Tahnee: (16:53) What day is it? Who am I?   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (16:54) Yeah, whose plate does this belong to.   Tahnee: (17:00) Totally.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (17:01) And having to get stressed out by detail. So part of the birth plan is to enable the guardians. So they can be dads or other primary caregivers, and really give them the keys to the car, so to speak, so they're not having to keep on asking mom is it okay if we do this. What about just things that are happening?   Tahnee: (17:25) Which I guess is sort of an impetus to articulate how you like to be supported. I think that's something where ... Certainly I'm speaking for myself and some friends that I've spoken to this about, but it can be hard to know what you need in that time, especially if you're a first time mum. I think if it's second or third ... I've had friends with a second baby who are like, all right, you're in charge of the food roster and you're in charge of this. They kind of knew what they would need.   Tahnee: (17:51) So in your book, you speak about just the basics of getting enough sleep, good nutrition, those kinds of things. If someone is thinking about what's my postnatal care plan, what are the things that you think are essential to have on there?   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (18:06) Yeah. So I talk about one month of deep rest, 100 days of deep support, and then priority on sleep for one year. So, that's kind of just some of the themes. I really try to enable the guardian, so the dads or the other primary caregivers, to be free of other duties. Their main job is to focus on the mother. Not focusing on the jobs that need to be done. We talk about visitors only start. If anyone's coming over, they've eventually got jobs to do.   Tahnee: (18:42) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (18:44) To give them permission to do as little as possible. As we know with TCM and setting the moon, in traditional Chinese culture, the mothers are allowed to do essentially nothing. They're allowed to go to the toilet, feed the baby, feed themselves and that's it. Some places are not even allowed to shower in the first month. If you're seen with a newborn baby out on the street, in traditional China, you're going to get shooed back into your home pretty quickly.   Tahnee: (19:15) Yeah, by one of those aunties.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (19:21) Yeah, yeah. Well, meaning they're quite full on aunties, yeah. Whereas we don't have that context or those sort of boundaries here. There are other things I sort of talk about with sort of postnatal planning is ... I think the food roster is just a great way. So again, food preferences, those kinds of things, email a group, WhatsApp group, whatever it looks like. Then the mother doesn't get involved.   Tahnee: (19:46) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (19:46) Food's arriving. If somebody can't deliver, you've got your backup in the freezer, whatever. Mother doesn't even know. She's not having to kind of be pulled out of the baby bubble. I think social media is a really big trap, especially for the social media inclined. You want to show off your joy to the world, and I totally get that, but have that for four weeks, social media silence. That would be an accepted norm.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (20:21) For the baby and the mother and the birth weight and everything went well. See you in four weeks.   Tahnee: (20:27) But you even talk about that, that focus on the birth weight, the stats and the kind of ... I remember reading that in your book. It's like there's this real emphasis on that, and then there's kind of just this like, great the baby is here. Forget about mom. Then it becomes baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (20:46) Yeah, and this was my personal experience. If the spotlight that had been so beautifully on mother during the pregnancy suddenly just disappears and suddenly, hang on, everyone's forgotten about her. I think is a collective ... that's literally what we've done. We're not honouring mothers and we're not honouring the great mother obviously in terms of what we're doing with global pollution and climate change. Who better to enable that change? I think mothers are able to teach children about being agents of change, and this is why we need mothers who are really just grounded, who are well in themselves, who reengage with their purpose.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (21:33) I call it the birth of the lioness's idea that, once a mother's at a vulnerable kind of stage with her mother upgrades in terms of all these extra brain neurons and receptors, and altered sort of stress responders and hormones, that she's actually got super powers that she didn't have before. She cares more than she ever has, and she'll often care about others more than she cares about herself. That's a gift and a curse, but the gift part of that is we need that sort of energy in all aspects of education, medicine, politics.   Tahnee: (22:12) Life.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (22:13) Life. I keep coming back to the fact that there are 10 countries in the world that are governed by mothers, by women. Five of them at least, possibly six, are mothers from what I can see. 193 countries governed in the world, so it's a very small percentage, but are the countries that are doing the best from a COVID-19 point of view. Of those 12 countries governed by women, seven of the top 10 in terms of COVID stats are governed by women. Statistically, that's outrageous in terms of the correlation there. I think partly it's a culture that enables females to be prime minister's and it's also that those cultures are obviously more evolved.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (23:04) Then you've got people in places of power who care a whole lot, and that sounds quite obvious, but we're in a pretty low care political system.   Tahnee: (23:18) But I think that ... I think what I've read in your book, and I'm hoping I'm getting this right, but it's like we need to wait a while. We need to wait until the kids are a bit older before we're sort of ready to express that super power. Would that be fair to say? I feel for me, my daughter is nearly four, and it's really time for me to step back from my leadership role and to give that over. Then there'll be a time when she's a bit more independent when I come back into that with that sort of gathered wisdom.   Tahnee: (23:47) But that pressure to stay on and run the company and all those things, I've really had to drop that over the last four years. It's something that I can feel that I'm capacitated, but I can also feel that my priorities are elsewhere. I think I need to honour that shift in priority. So I wonder if you could talk to that. I know your wife was quite a go getter from what I sort of-   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (24:08) Yeah.   Tahnee: (24:09) She's now the mum of three, so I imagine things have changed dramatically for her. So what's your sort of take on that shift? I watched Lucinda Ardern. She's just had a baby and she's running a country.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (24:21) Yeah.   Tahnee: (24:21) That's not very good in my mind.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (24:21) Well, from a postnatal depletion point of view, I was like ... I think she must have gotten pregnant around the time of winning the election from what I can kind of gather.   Tahnee: (24:32) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (24:34) Just doing a little bit of subtraction mathematics. She's had great support.   Tahnee: (24:42) But she also said in an interview she sleeps four or five hours a night, lives on coffee. She's pushing it.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (24:48) Yeah.   Tahnee: (24:49) I think that's where this fine line. I remember travelling for three months ... sorry, at three months with my daughter for a month, almost nonstop. It was dreadful. I felt terrible the whole time. I was barely keeping up. It's a totally different game when you have a kid.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (25:06) Yeah. Lucinda Ardern is probably quite an interesting example where she is supermom, but the idea of a supermom is actually quite dangerous and it shouldn't be something we're aiming for.   Tahnee: (25:17) No.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (25:18) For me, an analogy is it's like driving around without your seat belt on going, look at me, I didn't have an accident. It's like, well yeah, but you should still wear the seat belt. I've often thought about this question, what is the ideal time. I think it's partly dependent on each mum, but when I kind of look at cultural groups, these are first nations or cultures that are still living quite traditionally, the mothers are very involved with a zero to one year old, but then thereafter the grandmother hypothesis. The one to five year old, even the mother is still very involved, the primary care giving is actually by the aunties and the grandmothers.   Tahnee: (26:03) So that hypothesis, just for people that don't understand, is that the menopausal years are really about giving back to the community in service of raising children, and that the younger mothers were actually doing a lot of the physical work to keep the community going?   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (26:19) Exactly. We're only one of two species that has menopause. Apes, for example, they just become less fertile until death.   Tahnee: (26:31) Yes. Is it whales and us?   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (26:31) Orca whales, yeah. There's probably one other whale that you're thinking about, but they know exactly why orcas have menopause at 30. So they're fertile from 15 to 30 and then they can live up to 80.   Tahnee: (26:42) Wow.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (26:43) So these matriarchs pass on cultural knowledge and they learn seasonal changes. So they've studied orcas. It's a bit weird that they have a hypothesis for humans, but ... I think part of the programme, stopping of the ovaries at 15 and menopause is around, suddenly that cultural knowledge becomes more important than fertility and offspring, because you're supporting direct genetics.   Tahnee: (27:15) Lineage, yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (27:15) Anyway. So it's investing in grandchildren and the great grandchildren, as opposed to more children. Because there can be so many seasonal changes, and then changes with climate that could occur naturally anyway, it's very important to have that flexibility. That can take a long time to learn. So grandmothers have a really important role. Again, we would have had children much younger.   Tahnee: (27:49) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (27:49) The average age in Australia, one of the oldest countries in the world, 30.9 is the average age for your first child. Now that would have never happened in prehistory. That wouldn't have been the age of your first child. In this culture, we've had these deep practises to get mother back on board that first year. Baby bonding, really just focus on baby, and then she's kind of released from her role. So we need at least a year, but the effects of not allowing the hormonal system to recalibrate can cause neuro inflammation, which basically all the problems postnatally that we know about, postpartum fatigue, postnatal depression, all the mood disorders including anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, they are neuro inflammatory in nature, which are very different to men and maiden for similar symptoms. They're a unique group.   Tahnee: (28:50) Mm-hmm (affirmative). So you're saying postpartum, all of those symptoms or syndromes can be traced back to this inflammation of the brain.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (28:59) Yeah.   Tahnee: (28:59) Yeah, okay.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (29:00) It's a very tiny part of the brain. The research in the last few years has really increased in understanding of which parts of the brain and what you can potentially do about it is just really starting. So this idea of neuro inflammation is quite ... It's not new, but the idea with mothers in terms of as a community and as doctors and healers, this idea is relatively sort of new. It makes a lot of sense. The pattern fits exactly with what anyone sees clinically or if you're watching mothers kind of struggle with depression or fatigue, you realise this is not just stock standard symptoms.   Tahnee: (29:47) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (29:47) There's something very different or unique going on. So with that neuro inflammation, that can last for years and years afterwards. The peak incidence of depression after a child is four to five years after birth of a child but, because it's outside the six months definition, they can't call it postnatal depression. They have to call it depression postnatally. So it just shows you there's an accumulation of factors that can occur.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (30:20) When they do electrical scans of a mother's brain who has depression, they look very different to a maiden's brain who has the same symptoms. We shouldn't be calling these conditions postpartum depression, postnatal anxiety. They should actually be postnatal neuro inflammatory disorder.   Tahnee: (30:44) Yeah. The implication is you're not going to treat them with antidepressant in the same kind of treatment, right?   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (30:51) It just happens that some of the antidepressants have an accidental effect on neuro inflammation through something called gabber.   Tahnee: (30:57) Oh yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (30:58) Not through serotonin, which is ... Serotonin often takes two weeks for these medications to start working. If one of these serotonergic agents has this accidental gabber effect, you can start getting benefits within two to three days.   Tahnee: (31:14) Okay, but then herbs like Mucuna and things that work on gabber as well are going to be beneficial, right? Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (31:20) One thing just to be aware of regarding that is the first ever approved drug for postpartum depression came out last year in America. It's not available in Australia.   Tahnee: (31:30) I saw it, yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (31:31) Yeah, it's a pretty big topic, but I think what's profound about it is it's not actually a drug as much as a repurposed placental hormone that's been tweaked and infused into the mother who has depression, anxiety, can't look after herself. It essentially switches off that neuro inflammation within 12 hours typically.   Tahnee: (31:59) Wow.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (31:59) So pretty profound that one hormone can help a psychiatric condition, or that a hormone or anything can switch off a psychiatric condition, because that's relatively new ground. Normally you'd be managing or treating, not switching off. They give it as an infusion over 60 hours and mothers usually don't relay need any treatment after that.   Tahnee: (32:24) Wow.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (32:25) It's very expensive. It's not available in Australia, and I'm sure the pharmaceutical industry is going to do what it does and try to push it out to every mother who is struggling. But the idea is the unique landscape of the mother's brain, that this intervention probably wouldn't make much difference for a man or a maiden with the same symptoms. So if we can just really feel how profound that idea is, it's actually totally different. Anyone who works with mothers senses that. I think the science is just giving us permission to treat mothers differently, and it also is giving us an imperative that mother care is super, super important.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (33:17) I think one of the aha moments for me was looking at traditional Chinese medical texts when they described what happens to a mother who isn't supported. Even though the language is very different to what the concept of that a mother can be left in this fragile, nervous, depleted state ongoing, that's been known about for thousands of years. Hence the elaborate cultural practises and bullying by well meaning aunties because it's become-   Tahnee: (33:59) They observed that and they found solutions, which is science really. It's replicable over time and we're watching generations of women benefit from that. But then we don't really want to adopt those practises necessarily in our culture because it feels like who's going to ... Even the binding and all of those things, it's so rare that that's-   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (34:22) It can almost seem antifeminist as well.   Tahnee: (34:24) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (34:26) This is some of the feedback that I've certainly got from my mothers. What's quite cute for me is all my medical software that I use with pregnant mothers, it still has the initials EDC on there, estimated date of confinement. So it's alluding back to kind of the Victorian idea that mothers needed to be confined. Of course that seems quite-   Tahnee: (34:50) Antiquated.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (34:50) Yeah. That's very antifeminist, but the idea is that the confinement was a necessary part of the care. Then the confinement kind of occurred in hospitals, and then we just forgot about the confinement. Off you go, do what you want, good luck.   Tahnee: (35:12) Yeah. I've always said feminism has a lot to answer for because I think even some of those concepts of supermom and that comparison of ... I used to say I'll just bring my daughter to work. It'll be fine. I think there was this programing, I suppose, around my own upbringing and what I'd sort of witnessed in media and my friends and peers. It seemed like they kind of had the baby and they maybe disappeared for a month and then they were back to normal, in inverted comma's invariably not.   Tahnee: (35:44) But you talk about all of these things that come up. You talk in your book about treating women four years down the track that have all sorts of debilitating, whether it's anaemia or things like chronic colds and flues.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (35:57) Fatigue.   Tahnee: (35:58) Fatigue.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (35:58) Sleep problems, emotional health.   Tahnee: (35:59) Yeah, and it's like that's still happening.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (36:00) yeah.   Tahnee: (36:02) It's almost normalised. So many of my mom friends would just sort of accept that you're tired all the time and your brain doesn't work properly, but I don't know that that's ... When I'm really careful, I actually feel really good, but I have to have very strong boundaries and really take responsibility for my health as a priority over anything else I do. I think that's the sense of we normalise this business and this kind of deep fatigue and exhaustion, but it's really not normal. It's what everyone does.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (36:33) Well, what's common. So what is normal and what is common. 50% of people get cancer in their lifetime, so that's pretty common. You cannot convince me that cancer is normal. Many conditions alike, diabetes 50% rate past the age of 50, heart disease. It's so common that they're normalised. America is interesting that it's often four or five years ahead of what the statistics show in Australia. Currently in America, and I'm expecting to see this in Australia in four to five years time, is the rate of PMS or perinatal mood and anxiety disorder. That can be depression, anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder, is 40% within that first three to six months.   Tahnee: (37:24) Wow.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (37:25) So that's ... it was 30, 20%, and we're seeing ... It's not that the diagnosis is getting better or more-   Tahnee: (37:36) More sensitive, yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (37:38) It's just we're having more mothers that are just struggling and strung out, and really just pushed beyond their capacity, and then left in this neuro inflammatory state, and then they get the label, and then they get pharmaceutical treatment.   Tahnee: (37:56) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (37:58) So if you see the rates increasing, we have to then go, well as a collective, are we just okay with that?   Tahnee: (38:07) Yeah, take responsibility as a community.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (38:09) Yeah, also just go, okay, the stakes are getting higher. It's not that we're getting softer with each generation. It's just that there's epigenetic change over generations. I think there's more toxins, there's more-   Tahnee: (38:22) Totally.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (38:23) The modern woman doesn't have any downtime, whereas the ancient woman had a lot of stress for sure, but she had a lot of downtime as well. Times of boredom, times of just relaxation. The modern 21st Century woman and the modern mother, it's 24/7. She just keeps peddling, keeps peddling, and isn't supported to not do that. Then the expectation is that's what a mother does. Why you can blame her. You wanted the child. You've got a healthy ... The negative feedback that a mother gets if she is struggling is terrible. The judgement from well meaning others.   Tahnee: (39:05) Yeah, the undermining of their experience.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (39:07) Then a mother then judges herself, and then she starts undermining her own abilities. She may also pass it onto the next generation, this idea of the mother wound where intergenerational we can pass on the non supportive mothers. It doesn't have to be directly from your own mother. The mother wound is really about a cultural norm.   Tahnee: (39:34) Collective, yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (39:36) I wasn't supported. I wasn't allowed to shine my light. Why should you? That's part of the unspoken energy that sort of can happen in between generations. Yeah, it's devastating.   Tahnee: (39:51) It comes back to mother care, which is this essential what you do. So we're talking ... You mentioned a lot the autoimmune factor. I think, when I was pregnant, I was reading about how the baby's cells end up in the mother's heart or her brain or long after the kind of sharing a space.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (40:13) Yeah.   Tahnee: (40:13) Which still blows me away sometimes. There was a baby in my belly. But yeah, that can lead to really drastic immunological ... it can have a really positive effect, I've read. It can have these sort of ... I know people who have not been able to eat gluten before and suddenly have great digestion and don't have those inflammation responses, but then it can go the other way too, right?   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (40:33) Yeah. This is the-   Tahnee: (40:35) Opportunity and curse, I guess.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (40:37) Well, it's placental inflammation really. You need some inflammation, but too much inflammation during pregnancy, the immune system can get quite stressed. Essentially, most autoimmune conditions, apart from Lupus, improve-   Tahnee: (40:56) During pregnancy.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (40:57) During pregnancy. Mothers can feel amazing during pregnancy. Not all mothers, but because of progesterone and some of those other hormones. Then, once the placenta is delivered, you're in this vulnerable state, and then the immune rebound hypothesis is that the immune system can literally not only swing back to normal, but you've got a baby that's 50% foreign in you that swings too far the other way and becomes over reactive. So you can get a lot of things that are kicked off because of the pregnancy, and Hashimoto's seems to be one of those postpartum [inaudible 00:41:39]. Hashimoto's is an autoimmune disease of the thyroid seem to be conditions that may be very much pregnancy related, but the research is surprisingly sparse.   Tahnee: (41:54) Really?   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (41:54) Yeah. You think we'd know this really well. Again, we've got the wrong definitions. If you don't go to the endocrinologist or the rheumatologist within the first six months, you are treated like a man or a maiden.   Tahnee: (42:10) Sure.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (42:10) They don't even ask you have you had kids.   Tahnee: (42:13) That change hasn't been factored into a diagnosis.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (42:17) They're just going, do you have this condition, yes or no? Checklist, blood test, xrays, next and next, rather than looking at the timeline and going, you didn't have this before the pregnancy and you have it after the pregnancy. Sometimes mothers have no idea what's going on until maybe a year or two after the birth of the child. Then it kind of dawns on them that this is not just-   Tahnee: (42:41) Yeah, fatigue.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (42:44) Fatigue or sleep deprivation.   Tahnee: (42:44) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (42:46) So I think I really like this idea of a special field of medicine for mothers that we might call matriarchs or something like that to kind of really show the unique landscape and the unique things that can happen. We've got paediatrics, we've got geriatrics.   Tahnee: (43:05) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (43:06) I think there's definitely enough research to kind of look at mothers as a separate group.   Tahnee: (43:15) Yeah I seem to remember Chinese medicine, there was ... I can't remember her name now. It might come to me, but there was a textbook translation on sort of gynaecology. They did speak to treating mothers differently and at different stages since the birth as well. Maybe you've come across it. I'll see if I can find it, but I thought it was super interesting because it was sort of the first time I'd been exposed to that idea that you're different and that you might be different 10 years, 20 years.   Tahnee: (43:46) I think from that cellular ... when they talk about the baby's cells, they can stay for a couple of decades sometimes.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (43:52) 20-30 years.   Tahnee: (43:53) Yeah, which is like having a foreign cell in your body.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (43:58) It can somehow turn the system for good, but then it can also stress the system. This is probably what we're seeing with autoimmune diseases is too many foetal cells come into the mother's circulation and stressing the immune system too much.   Tahnee: (44:11) So would that mean a more, sort of ... I can't remember the word right now, but the barrier of the placenta is more porous.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (44:20) Yeah, so leaky placenta. Researchers don't call it that, increased permeability of the placental membrane.   Tahnee: (44:27) Permeability, that's the word.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (44:29) It's basically leaky placenta and this idea of preg formation. The placenta is going to be slightly leaky and we've had to revert to a very unique old type of placenta as humans that most apes and most mammals don't use.   Tahnee: (44:43) Yeah, I think you were saying we're one of the only ones ... 20% of something are like us, or not even.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (44:48) Well, it's more the fact that it's not the classic mammal, advanced mammal placenta.   Tahnee: (44:56) Okay, it's larger, right?   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (44:59) It's larger and it has more surface area.   Tahnee: (45:01) Yeah, okay. So it takes up more space.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (45:03) So rather than the kind of finger and finger type placenta, which is kind of a 50/50 transaction, it's what they call the mop in the bucket analogy to enable much wider surface area to enable more nutrients-   Tahnee: (45:17) More blood flow.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (45:18) ... and essentially fat. So fat's one of the things that-   Tahnee: (45:21) Yeah, in the last stages, a lot of fat.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (45:24) Seven grams of fat, which is a major biological back flip that the placenta has to do to enable that. So it means that the placenta is more easily damaged than the placenta of a horse or a pig or something like that, which are pretty stable. So you don't see inflammatory issues in these kinds of animals very often.   Tahnee: (45:45) That makes me think, if a mother comes into pregnancy with leaky gut or something, is there a higher chance of her developing a leaky placenta?   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (45:54) You would think so, but again zero research.   Tahnee: (45:57) Yeah, this is hypothesis.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (45:59) If you've already got too much inflammation, increasing intestinal permeability or leaky gut, even sort of increased brain permeability, sort of leaky brain. Basically conditions of too much inflammation. So if you're having that going into pregnancy, it can work both ways. Sometimes people think it can actually have a massive healing effect with all these hormones.   Tahnee: (46:27) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (46:28) I've seen that happen. Often I'll try to coach mothers who have had very negative pregnancies or postnatal experiences to then use subsequent pregnancies as a healing experience.   Tahnee: (46:43) Yeah, that's a Chinese medicine concept too, that each pregnancy is an opportunity ...   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (46:47) Yeah, I love that. I call it harnessing the power of the placenta. The placenta produces hormones to a volume that we can't even imagine.   Tahnee: (46:57) Yeah, it's an amazing organ just in terms of that it's not really either the child or the mother's either. It's this kind of thing.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (47:07) Genetically it's the child.   Tahnee: (47:08) It's the child, yeah okay.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (47:09) But serving two masters.   Tahnee: (47:11) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (47:14) It's having to kind of do a trade off sometimes. If it doesn't get it right, one or the other is going to suffer. Then it would be a bad outcome for both.   Tahnee: (47:23) Yeah. So does the child initiate its formation, but the mother provides the nutrition for it, because from what I've understood there's this unusual sharing of resources in that it demands a lot of the mother and the mother will give more than she has if necessary.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (47:40) Yeah. So apart from vitamin D, which isn't even a vitamin. It's a-   Tahnee: (47:45) Hormone.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (47:45) Pro-hormone, which is kind of a 50/50 sort of share. Everything else is preference for the child, even oxygen. So if a mother were to be drowning or something like that, she would drown first before the child because of fetal ... Haemoglobin will just grab onto the oxygen at the expense of the mother. So, that's how ... Not that it's a very nice example, but it's an example of just how profound that one way street is.   Tahnee: (48:16) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (48:17) It's true with iron, with DHA, with basically all the vitamins, nutrients, minerals. Daylight robbery is one term I've heard.   Tahnee: (48:25) Yeah, we used to call it a parasite. Kindly, but-   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (48:30) Yeah. So this is why the focus shouldn't be really on the child. It should be on the mother because, from an animal kingdom point of view, they've got quite a unique set up in terms of we've got this massive brain. People don't realise that we're not like any other animal. 20-25% of our energy goes to feeding our brain, whereas the next animal, which I think is a whale or a gorilla maybe, clocks in at about nine percent.   Tahnee: (49:03) Wow.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (49:04) Nature's done a trade off that we have less muscles than other apes. We have shorter digestive tracks and a smaller liver to offset the cost. It's kind of like a budget.   Tahnee: (49:17) Totally. You have this much for the brain, but you've got to lose the liver.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (49:20) Then the child is born much earlier because upright walking is more of the pelvis. Instead, we've got this massive head that other primates don't have.   Tahnee: (49:30) Mm-hmm (affirmative). It has to get out before it gets too big to leave the birth canal.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (49:33) Yeah. They look at comparative studies are looking at apes. Humans should be born around 22 months.   Tahnee: (49:46) For our perfect health.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (49:48) Well, for just how capable that infant is.   Tahnee: (49:52) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (49:52) You look at other infants that can do stuff.   Tahnee: (49:54) Totally, not just blimps.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (49:58) From chimpanzees and gorillas. So from nine months to 22 months, they've got this totally helpless being.   Tahnee: (50:05) Little guy or girl.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (50:06) This is why, again, mother nature's had to work out some extra things in terms of more oxytocin to care more about this liability.   Tahnee: (50:17) Sure, and that's where social sort of things came from. I think I've read some anthropolitical stuff that said the reason we've developed societies and cultures and all those villages was because we have these liabilities. It wasn't as easy to move around constantly with helpless babies.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (50:35) And we've grown those parts of the brain that enable ... If you look at chimps, they can live in groups of 30. Then enobos, who are much more social, can live in groups of 50.   Tahnee: (50:50) Yeah, ours is like 150.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (50:52) 150, and that's because of gossip. No, no, gossip is not a bad thing. You have to keep connection with everyone in your tribe.   Tahnee: (51:01) Mm-hmm (affirmative), so you'll talk about people.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (51:04) So you can talk about something you may not have seen for a few days, and that's ... of course it's meant to be a really healthy thing. People checking in, how's so and so down by the river? He's collecting fish from the tribe. How's he or she doing? So gossip is actually part of what enables us to live in those groups of 120 and 150. Then another instalment that we've had is the religious part of the brain that then we can live in super clans. So you can meet someone from a super clan and, if you share a religious ideology, that suddenly goes from 150 to thousands and thousands.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (51:41) Research around that is super interesting. The only problem is, when you have a super clan meeting another super clan with different religious ideologies and we don't need to get down to that-   Tahnee: (51:52) We all know what happens.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (51:55) Especially if there's resources to be had.   Tahnee: (51:58) Yeah. So one of the things I think, if we just want to start thinking about wrapping up, but the real ... I guess this sense that the mother can be prepared, because this is something I've always seen out of ancestral kind of writings on women. It's like there's this sense of before conception of building the mother's reserves, and then there's obviously the pregnancy, so sort of nutritious and well managed pregnancy. Chinese medicine is very big on that as well. I'm sure most other countries are too.   Tahnee: (52:33) Then this sense of postpartum rebuilding the stores, rebuilding what's been kind of depleted through the pregnancy. That seems to be a really big missing factor in our thinking around pregnancy. I think the nutrition and stuff ... I had a friend who didn't eat anything except for chocolate for her whole pregnancy because she just felt crap the whole time. I'm sure she was okay. The baby is healthy, whatever, but there's this sense that it's not a huge priority a lot of the time for people.   Tahnee: (53:04) So if you're talking nutrition and how to build ... I always think about building healthy blood, building healthy hormones and all these things. What are the main things you emphasise with your clients?   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (53:15) One thing I've grown to realise in sort of many years of working with mothers is that, behind the hormonal system, behind the immune system and behind a lot of these layers that we kind of see is the nervous system. A key part of maintaining good health and a key part of recovering is around nervous system practises. So these are essentially things that enable us to recalibrate back to a zero point. Knowing that your inflammation, as an example, is immune system out of control.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (53:53) Then that drives the immune system, and then that drives the hormonal system, because those are key parts of the brain that decide hormones and the immune response or not are in the brain. When people say it's all in your head, they're being unkind, but they're kind of-   Tahnee: (54:09) Kind of true.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (54:09) Yeah, unwittingly telling the truth. So, that's become much more of a theme. The nutrients, the supplements in the food I think all support, but if you're not doing the nervous system practises, then you're losing a lot of the benefit. Of course, the great nervous system practise is called sleep. We know that the average mother loses up to 700 hours of sleep in that first year, so she's already on the back foot.   Tahnee: (54:43) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (54:43) So how to do you then support her nervous system during the day? Ideally we're doing nervous system practises preconception during pregnancy. I was talking before about 3:00 in the morning, you're baby's not sleeping, you haven't slept for months. That's not the time ideally to start nervous system practises.   Tahnee: (55:06) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (55:10) So I'm really trying to coach a lot of my pre-mothers and pregnant mothers to really start looking into ... What's interesting with nervous system practise is the researchers often say that there is a sense of stillness. There's often paced respiration, so slowed down respiration, slow in breath, slow out breath. There are many things that can potentially tick a nervous system practise, meditation, gratitude practise, yoga, yoga nidra, micro naps, walking meditations, sometimes even craft or creative pursuits.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (55:50) Well, if you bring in the breath awareness, you can get into a flow [inaudible 00:55:53] that can really help recalibrate the nervous system. Just realising that can do way more than what a lot of supplements can do.   Tahnee: (56:02) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (56:03) So we shouldn't just be focusing on that without really giving importance to those nervous system practise. Then re enabling mothers to do these things, because when you're 24/7 busy, the universe is never going to come along and say, hey mom, do you want to-   Tahnee: (56:21) Take off an hour.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (56:22) Yeah, a 30 minute guided meditation. No one will disturb you. That's just not going to happen.   Tahnee: (56:25) Okay.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (56:28) So ideally the concept's already there. The practise is already there. Then that inner circle, that team, the guardians-   Tahnee: (56:37) Facilitating.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (56:38) Facilitating and honouring. It takes more than a tantrum for one of your kids to come knock that off your schedule. Whereas I see so many mothers just going, today was a weird day, I didn't do my practise. It's like, well when did you last do your practise? Two weeks ago. It's like, we really need to empower mothers to ... Something I've recently started comparing these nervous system practises to is like brushing your teeth. Dental health practise, you do it twice a day. You don't really think about it too much. It feels odd if we don't do it and we're looking for a longterm dental health. Teeth don't fall out tomorrow if you haven't brushed your teeth, but we'll kind of go out of our way. If we're out camping and we don't have a toothbrush, we'll sort it out pretty quickly usually.   Tahnee: (57:36) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (57:38) So we kind of need a mental health practise, [inaudible 00:57:41] we don't have to really think about it too much and it feels a bit strange if we don't.   Tahnee: (57:45) Yep.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (57:46) So what I really encourage mothers to do is what does that look like to you. Then what have you done in the past that might fit that. What are you thinking about that might fit that. Then you here a few suggestions. Then once you're doing those practises, guard them.   Tahnee: (58:04) Yeah, with your life.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (58:05) Well, as if your life depends on it because, ironically, it does.   Tahnee: (58:10) It does, yeah. You mentioned yoga nidra, and it's funny because I haven't had the experience of not ... I'm a yoga teacher and I had a practise since I was 15 at various degrees of commitment as I was in my 20s and stuff. But from my mid 20s to now, I've been very committed, and I can find myself, if I put on a major recording, it's the equivalent of a good nap for me or something like that. 20, 30 minutes can revitalise me.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (58:43) Yeah.   Tahnee: (58:44) If I feel myself coming down with something, I can do a yoga nidra and it seems to ... What you're saying about it actually turning off the kind of stress response and the information makes some sense. It always puts me in that heal response.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (58:57) It's a recalibration.   Tahnee: (58:59) Yeah. I don't get sick a lot of the time if I'm consistent with it. But it is something that ... I can imagine if it's not something in your repertoire, it can feel a little bit confronting to go and find. Do you have any resources or places, people that you recommend to your mums?   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (59:19) Well, I first kind of acknowledge the situation. I explore what mothers have done in the past. It's kind of maybe that we have to reinvent the wheel. Yoga nidra is very easy to find. Many things on the web now, so I'm not kind of attached to any particular style. Essentially it's a guided meditation with body awareness and breath awareness.   Tahnee: (59:43) So anything along those lines is going to be of service.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (59:47) Even micro napping where you technically you don't go to sleep. You touch a sleep space.   Tahnee: (59:51) Like a liminal or half awake naps? Is that what you mean?   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (59:55) Yeah, for 15 or 20 minutes.   Tahnee: (59:56) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (59:56) You literally touch the sleep space. You may need to put an alarm on. The guided meditation is kind of your alarm in some way because it-   Tahnee: (01:00:02) Sure. It tells you to come up again.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (01:00:05) Yeah. You can get a good four hours after that. Even place like Google and all of these large corporations.   Tahnee: (01:00:13) Yeah, we do it here. It's only twice a week. The guys have a half hour meditation session.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (01:00:22) Okay. Probably wht Google have sleep pods where they kind of expect people to have a micro nap, not because they care about their employee, but-   Tahnee: (01:00:27) Better productivity   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (01:00:28) Well, then the product of your research. Your product nosedives after six hours. It doesn't matter who you are.   Tahnee: (01:00:35) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (01:00:36) If you're a mother, if you're working, if you've had six hours you're toast. You need something rejuvenating and something that's relatively easy. I often talk to my mothers about cue points, and a cue point is where you are cued to do a relaxation of some sort. So a cue point might be on the toilet. It's usually a place where you're physically still. It doesn't always have to be. So at traffic lights. Literally in a cue at the super market, those kinds of things.   Tahnee: (01:01:04) Cue, cue.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (01:01:06) That's just an invitation to do maybe five slow in breaths and five slow out breaths. It's really amazing when you become more practised at these things. You think oh my gosh, I kind of just felt a bit frazzled before, but I'm a little bit more centred now, a little bit more resilient. That can make all the difference. If you're doing that enough times and then you're doing some bigger practises once a week and looking at your nutrition and your purpose, and being active enough but not over-exercising, and eating the right food for your body type at the right kind of stage.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (01:01:44) Motherhood, that nervous system intervention can make all the difference. Then it can actually improve the quality of your sleep. There's so many ... I talk about a virtuous cycle. This is a vicious cycle. A vicious cycle is I haven't slept well, I'm so tired, my cortisol is low, my blood sugar is not great, I'm just eating on the run. I'm not making the best decisions, I'm frustrated, I'm getting angry and then I'm feeling bad about myself because of the anger. That's a real vicious cycle. Then I'm being combative with my partner. We're not having that kind of connection time. Then dominoes for that can be just a constant state.   Tahnee: (01:02:28) Totally.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (01:02:29) A vicious cycle. Whereas a virtuous cycle is you do something that makes it a little bit easier to then maybe do some ... make a better food choice or make sure you protect that space for your nervous system practise that makes it easier for a healthy interaction with your partner, that makes it easy to then advocate for yourself. It makes it then easier to kind of see what's kind of going on, realise okay I actually need to kind of change a little bit.   Tahnee: (01:02:53) Totally, react to your kids.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (01:02:55) Yeah, you just go, okay this isn't working, and have the energy and insight to kind of change in a healthy kind of way. Whereas, if you're just in postpartum rage or anger, while that energy is there to motivate change, the change is often not whether you want is what you're really desiring.   Tahnee: (01:03:13) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (01:03:16) It fuels ... So again, it's not about perfection. It's just about slightly better.   Tahnee: (01:03:21) Yeah.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (01:03:21) Then slightly better leads to slightly better. That's what a virtuous cycle is.   Tahnee: (01:03:25) Mm-hmm (affirmative). Instead of those little steps in a downward spiral, it's little steps in an upward spiral.   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (01:03:31) Yeah. Sort of week to week, month to month. I often see mothers going, I'm still tired but I'm doing so much more and I feel better in myself, and I'm a bit clearer. The other thing is that I've stopped asking mothers how are you feeling because probably a better question is how much are you doing.   Tahnee: (01:03:52) Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Dr. Oscar Serrallach: (01:03:53) In

Are there too many underutilised qualifications in the Australian VET system? Are some qualifications past their expiration date?  One method of reducing qualifications involves grouping them into vocational clusters so individuals can train for several jobs at once. This approach also creates greater transferability of skills in the labour market.  Do we have the appetite for such transformative change? Is there a role for good quality training that may sit outside the formal national training system?Steve Davis talks to Professor John Buchanan, Business School, University of Sydney, David Morgan, CEO, Artibus Innovation and Simon Walker, Managing Director, NCVER about the notion of ‘clustering’ qualifications into vocational streams for a range of occupations and how it could be achieved. 

How cutting red tape and improving regulations could help economies recover from the COVID-crisis.  Economics Explained host Gene Tunny speaks with University of Sydney Associate Professor Salvatore Babones about his paper, co-authored with Ben Scott, Rationalising Regulation, which is part of the Centre for Independent Studies Pandemic to Recovery Policy Papers series.  The paper is available via the CIS website.

Ep 114 is out on all your favourite platforms! This week's topics: 1. Exercise selection for muscle growth 16:27 2. Trade-offs of compound vs. isolation 25:23 3. Rationalising session/program structure 40:32 4. Programming symbiosis: Strength & hyp. 49:33 Coaches Academy: https://stcfit.lpages.co/academy As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop a comment or get in touch!

Beginning with a few words of insight from Stefan Molyneux after his recent de-platforming, Neil speculates on how the dots could connect. He then attempts to bring the listener into the mindset of the tipping-point of the silent majority. The Podcast ends with a ten-minute highlight from a 2014 documentary on the origins of Political Correctness.

Visit http://JohnBlakeAudio.com to Learn How to DOUBLE Your Enquiry-to-Sale Conversion with The Lead Flow You Already Have. As we all know, nowadays we are living in incredibly unique times. We are all affected in some way or another by the current situation and as a result, this has taken its toll on the whole economy. There is no way to deny that the challenge is certainly big and that it can be overwhelming, but I think there are things that can be done to improve the way we manage our money helping us build a financial foundation that lets us get through.   Speaking of that, I’ve heard many people talk about maximising sales and also some people saying that regardless of what the business is, it can actually thrive and rise above this situation. I don’t necessarily agree with that but I think one of the ways that you can minimise the impact is by really rationalising your expenses, and that is precisely what we are going to be talking about in this week’s episode.  To have a better perspective on this issue, that right now is a priority, I’ve invited George Slater to talk with us. He is a retired CRM specialist, and he is still pretty active, he has written a couple of books, he’s been a mentor of mine for a number of years, he was the director of online for Worldwide Selling Marketing and was also responsible for helping its owner and many others to rationalise their expenses and right-size their businesses over a number of years. He’s got a lot of experience working it out that’s why I think he is the best person to talk to about this.   Even though he has helped many important businesses, the principles he teaches do not only apply to big corporations, that’s why today we’re going to be talking about how you can save, if you are an individual, somewhere in between three and six thousand dollars per year almost straight away through looking at your expenses.   Some of these things might sound pretty obvious but there are going to be a couple of gems in there that you are just not doing, and if you do choose to do them I think you'll emerge a lot leaner and a lot more profitable once we pop at the other end.  With that in mind is that today, George is going to walk us through a list of things he has carefully thought and designed so you have the tools to know where to look and how to manage your expenses without sacrificing the essentials.  So, if you are looking for a way to relieve your economy or if you just want to be more careful when it comes to spending money I encourage you to listen to this conversation, because I can’t think of a better person to talk to about this issue than George, and I can guarantee you are going to learn a lot listening to him. To DOUBLE your lead-to-sale CONVERSION with the leads you already have, go to http://JohnBlakeAudio.com for his exclusive, free, no-fluff, audio training and companion PDF guide. Inside you’ll get word-for-word email followup templates, phone scripts, and more that you can put to use today.

Clinton Free – Rationalising fraud: insights from offenders by University of Sydney

How often are you letting your own excuses set you back?

Kate Hill bounced back to become a successful seasoned investor after some unlucky early investment purchases. She is a qualified investment advisor and buyers agent with Advisable. Having dramatically changed her career course just a few years ago, Hill has acquired a solid portfolio and is expanding her business.Join us in to this episode of Property Investory to learn about her skills to successful investment, how she continues to educate and condition her mindset for success, and how she rationalises her clients fears about purchasing property. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Kate Hill bounced back to become a successful seasoned investor after some unlucky early investment purchases. She is a qualified investment advisor and buyers agent with Advisable. Having dramatically changed her career course just a few years ago, Hill has acquired a solid portfolio and is expanding her business.Join us in to this episode of Property Investory to learn about her skills to successful investment, how she continues to educate and condition her mindset for success, and how she rationalises her clients fears about purchasing property. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Listen to the full episode here: https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode?id=327442 Kate Hill bounced back to become a successful seasoned investor after some unlucky early investment purchases. She is a qualified investment advisor and buyers agent with Advisable. Having dramatically changed her career course just a few years ago, Hill has acquired a solid portfolio and is expanding her business. Join us in to this episode of Property Investory to learn about her skills to successful investment, how she continues to educate and condition her mindset for success, and how she rationalises her clients fears about purchasing property.

Matt and Pete talk candidly about bad decisions that have cost Arsenal dearly. Depressing AF, you have been warned

In this illuminating episode Fredrik discusses with Dominic Colenso the vital components required for successful communication and pitching across a range of business contexts. The important elements for successful pitching and communication are all discussed enabling us all to understand how to successfully approach these vital aspects of business. Dominic Colenso – is the founder of Inflow Global a specialist communication training company working with businesses to help their people speak and perform under pressure, focusing on all aspects of verbal and non-verbal communication. KEY TAKEAWAYS Communication - How do you work with other people? A starting premise is always that everyone has the ability to communicate, we’re doing it all the time and we’re doing it in lots of different scenarios. Working with people on heightening their awareness and understanding how they’re coming across in different situations means they have more choice. When people understand what range, they have available to them they can dial things up, and certain things down depending on the context they are in. How do you really connect with a person? Putting spotlight on the audience, who you’re talking to and what their needs are and making sure you meet those needs are the key aims to be met. Communication is the transfer of energy between 2 or more human beings and when you’re the person driving the communication it’s your responsibility to take care of your audience and give to them what they need. Pitching – How can you get it right? It’s important to understand what are your hot buttons, what are the triggers? Be completely honest with yourself is there certain behaviour in other people that makes you tense? or are there patterns? e.g. in the way the room is set up. Rationalising the triggers enables you to be better mentally prepared. Preparation is the only way to bring those words to life. Rehearsing is absolutely vital this doesn’t mean you need to learn script it’s about understanding what your key messages are then saying them out loud as many ways as possible so when you’re in the situation your body knows what to do. The key is to make eye contact, be available to people in the room. Its important to make an impact when you enter room and you should move into the space with your head up and making eye contact. Start with something different and own the space. Engaging the audience and creating that equal relationship is vital. If you’re going in asking for money or investment then they are interviewing you, but you are also interviewing them there is a balance of power. If you go in and give it all away the end results and end relationship can be disastrous. The ‘call to action’ is a vital component, you need to be clear about what the next steps are, you’ve got to agree some way of moving forward – be upfront and ask. BEST MOMENTS “You have a responsibility to take your audience on that journey”. “There is always a balance –it’s your duty to try and understand.”  “Some people bring light to the room some people bring darkness” “In the realm of pitching – how do I influence and inspire other people?” “We begin to breathe in a way that helps pump adrenalin quicker, moving us to flight or fight mode.” “I like the whole idea of being an influencer, to be someone that gives so people are attracted to you that’s a massive thing in today’s society.” “Crazy thing is most of us we had it, we dared to do things then stuff happened and made boundaries for our whole life.” “I am always looking to open up dialogue to give the client or audience as much space as possible to tell me what they need, then I can tailor my offering to meet their needs.” VALUABLE RESOURCES Fredrik Sandvall, Invest in You: https://itunes.apple.com/pk/podcast/invest-in-you/id1353355236?mt=2 ABOUT THE HOST Serial entrepreneur Fredrik Sandvall loves sharing ideas and interviewing world-class entrepreneurs and influencers. Invest in You is about investments, entrepreneurs, personal development and doing fun things. He hopes to ensure you take action, helping others and yourself, plus enjoy the journey we call life. CONTACT METHOD Contact Fredrik Sandvall – Invest in You  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandvall/?originalSubdomain=uk Website: https://sandvallinvest.com/ Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/FredrikinLondon Dominic Colenso – Inflow Global www.linkedin.com/in/dominiccolenso  @dominiccolenso  www.inflow.global 

In this episode, I discuss surds and the surd form. Rationalising, conjugates and rational numbers and irrational numbers are some of the topics that are discussed. Visit bitesizemathpi.com Email at bitesizemathpi@gmail.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/bitesizemathpi/

Author, educator, and psychologist Simon Marshall, PhD, is back on the podcast today to discuss the profound impact of mindset on athletic performance.  He describes the driving forces behind self-sabotage and exercise addiction and actually sheds light on some of my own cognitive barriers to winning.  Simon’s brilliance truly lies in his ability to identify unseen barriers to performance and harness the power of the mind to maximize athletic potential. I’m thrilled to announce that Simon will now be working with every athlete who joins the Elite Performance Program at Nourish Balance Thrive.  You can also find him at Braveheart Coaching where he and his world champion triathlete spouse Leslie Paterson specialize in training endurance athletes.  Also listen to Simon’s previous podcast: How to Create Behaviour Change. Here’s the outline of this interview with Simon Marshall: [00:03:01] Team S.H.I.T. [00:04:36] Book: The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down and Rise to the Occasion, by Simon Marshall and Lesley Paterson (audible version here). [00:07:38] My problems racing cross - settling for 3rd. [00:11:51] Competitor versus participant mindset. [00:13:14] Chimp vs professor brain. [00:14:29] Rationalising throwing in the towel. [00:15:43] Effort and attitude. [00:16:45] Recognising the cues that lead to the participant mindset. [00:18:50] Central governor theory, proposed by Tim Noakes.  Podcast: Professor Tim Noakes: True Hydration and the Power of Low-Carb, High-Fat Diets. [00:20:48] Metering effort. [00:21:19] Segmenting. [00:24:01] Self-sabotage. [00:28:05] Book: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol Dweck. [00:30:36] Biology defines behaviour. [00:31:52] Depression. [00:32:50] Daniel Amen, Kelly Brogan. Podcast: Depression with Kelly Brogan. [00:34:19] Exercise addiction. [00:35:10] Disordered eating. [00:38:06] The multi-faceted approach to increasing performance and healthspan. [00:38:55] Finding purpose. [00:39:24] Positive psychology. [00:40:32] Book: Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America, by Barbara Ehrenreich. [00:41:31] Psychologists: Martin Seligman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. [00:44:09] Book: Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, by Kim Scott. [00:48:17] braveheartcoach.com

In episode 17, Rhod will be asking whether philanthropy is rational,and what lessons we should take from our answer to this question. Topics covered include:   -The micro/macro philanthropy paradox: Philanthropy is both about individual voluntary acts of generosity and about the large scale redsitribution of private assets for public good. But while the former is largely irrational, the latter needs to be rational. What can policymakers and philanthropists do about this?   -Rationalising philanthropy: There have been efforts to rationalise philanthropy in the past, such as the "scientific philanthropy" movement of the Victorian era. There is also a growing focus on the role data can play in helping donors make more informed decisions. Bringing these together, the Effective Altruism proposes a scientific approach to philanthropy based on data- but is it truly objective?   -Social Impact prediction markets: could new technologies like blockchain make it easier to measure and record social impact data accurately? And could token incentives be used to create prediction markets for social impact in the future.   Related Giving Thought Material   LEDGER GOOD DEEDS SHINE: USING BLOCKCHAIN TO MEASURE, RECORD AND PREDICT SOCIAL IMPACT   AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE: WHAT MIGHT A PHILANTHROPY ALGORITHM LOOK LIKE?   Public Good By Private Means: Principles of Philanthropy Policymaking Lecture (SLIDES and NOTES)   ARE SOME CAUSES BETTER THAN OTHERS? The effective altruism debate  

Marc Moore, Reader in Corporate Law at University of Cambridge, gave a seminar entitled "Rationalising CEO-Worker Pay Equity" on Wednesday, 19 February 2015 at the Faculty of Law.Marc's interests are in company law, corporate governance and capital markets, especially theory of the firm and the legitimacy of managerial decision-making power in public companies. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/, and the Cambridge Private Law Centre website at http://www.privatelaw.law.cam.ac.uk/

Marc Moore, Reader in Corporate Law at University of Cambridge, gave a seminar entitled "Rationalising CEO-Worker Pay Equity" on Wednesday, 19 February 2015 at the Faculty of Law.Marc's interests are in company law, corporate governance and capital markets, especially theory of the firm and the legitimacy of managerial decision-making power in public companies. For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website at http://www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/, and the Cambridge Private Law Centre website at http://www.privatelaw.law.cam.ac.uk/

It’s hard to deny that websites need to be well designed; a pleasing UI, a seamless and pleasant UX, and a great personality really encourage users to interact and enjoy using your site, product or service. However, the design is only one part of a finished product; your product is built on code, and oftentimes it is necessary to sacrifice certain aspects of a design in order to keep the codebase itself leaner, faster, and more enjoyable to work with. In this talk Harry aims to share some of his die-hard pragmatic approaches that he employs in order to push back on designs to produce far better quality code. More info at: https://fronteers.nl/congres/2013/sessions/better-quality-code

It’s hard to deny that websites need to be well designed; a pleasing UI, a seamless and pleasant UX, and a great personality really encourage users to interact and enjoy using your site, product or service. However, the design is only one part of a finished product; your product is built on code, and oftentimes it is necessary to sacrifice certain aspects of a design in order to keep the codebase itself leaner, faster, and more enjoyable to work with. In this talk Harry aims to share some of his die-hard pragmatic approaches that he employs in order to push back on designs to produce far better quality code. More info at: https://fronteers.nl/congres/2013/sessions/better-quality-code

The Department of Health wants to slash £1.2 billion off the bill for hospital supplies -- everything from bandages and rubber gloves to operating tables and medical equipment. The planned savings form part of the £20 billion in NHS efficiency savings the Government has pledged to make by 2014. There's plenty of scope for savings. A recent survey found one Hospital Trust bought 177 different types of surgical gloves. Across the NHS, hospitals buy more than 1,700 different kinds of canula. Rationalising this medical shopping list could free-up £500 million a year for investment in patient care, the National Audit Office estimates. But can the increasingly complex NHS procurement system in England deliver the major savings the Government wants to see? Critics say Foundation Hospital Trusts increasingly make their own buying decisions, with little or no national co-ordination. Inside hospitals, managers tasked with purchasing millions of pounds worth of equipment often lack the authority or the support of their superiors to drive through savings. Meanwhile new private sector companies are moving in to take over the purchase and supply of NHS equipment. Will the Government's plans for a more devolved health service help or hinder the drive to save taxpayers' money. Jenny Cuffe investigates. Producer: Andy Denwood.